Traditions of the Season

This post is just to remember some of what is going on at Christmas. This is our nativity set which Kathy bought for us our first or second Christmas. I love it, Rob loves it, it reminds me of the set I grew up with, and we both agree on it. "It's a Christmas MIRACLE!" as her husband would say.

Here is Maddie's stocking as made by grandma. My mom started making these when she was a freshman at BYU, sewing one for each of her parents as their Christmas presents that year. She bought the supplies on Woolworth's on Center Street. Now she has made them for siblings and in-laws and nieces and nephews and children and grandchildren. They've gotten more complicated through the years, especially once Rob was around with his ideas.

Have I mentioned that Rob is Idea Man? I've told him that if he were a superhero he'd be named Captain Brainstorm and his uniform would have a big BS on the chest with a lightning bolt in the middle. He's got grandma making more and more difficult designs. Now grandma and the Boston Shumways (who share some of the same designs) can rest easy because he's made pictures of each of the stockings. This is in case (heaven forbid) anything should happen to them, my mom can just whip them up again. He thought of this because of Dresden.
See, Rob's internet addiction is to live web cams in Germany, specifically restoring sites of historical significance. His employer and his family are happier with this addiction than plenty of others he could have, but it is still disconcerting that he can talk to you in great detail about what is currently happening at the plaza around the Frauenkirche or the plans for Berlin's new city palace for twenty minutes on end.
Actually, he could talk to you for forty minutes at least on either of those topics, but my eyes roll back in my head and my screensaver goes up after twenty. However, he was just reading about how they were restoring an olde building by the Frauenkirche and didn't have a single picture of one section, so they were having to fake it. He determined that this same fate would never meet our Christmas stockings and promptly took pictures to remedy the situation.

This was the traditional Christmas dessert at my mother's house. I'm sorry that I haven't done it justice here with my first attempt, but it's a steamed pudding, of the variety that the British eat, and are named things like Drunken Baby and Spotted Dog (and worse -- much much worse). It comes with two sauces, and my maternal grandparents just gave me two of the original dishes to serve it on. If you happen to have a dish with a lid suitable for steaming, and you want to try an interesting recipe, you can do it yourself:

Steamed Carrot Pudding from Eunice Nelson
COMBINE:
2 cups raw potatoes (ground through fine knife of grinder)
2 cups raw carrots (ground through fine knife of grinder)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening (scant)
2 cups flavored raisins (More or less as desired)
1 cup broken nut meats (more or less as desired)
SIFT:
2 cups flour 2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp soda 2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder 2 tsp salt
Cream sugars and shortening, add carrots and potatoes.
Add flour baking powder, soda, salt and spices.
Add nuts and raisins. Mix thoroughly. Fill greased cans or mold 2.3 full. Steam 3 hours. Remove from cooker and remove lids to cool.
LEMON SAUCE
1 cup sugar 2 cups boiling water
2 tbs cornstarch 2 tbs butter
1 lemon, rind and juice (I go easy on rind)
Mix cornstarch and sugar, add boiling water slowly, stirring constantly to prevent lumping. Bring slowly to the boiling point and allow to boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add lemon rind, juice and butter.
HARD SAUCE
1/3 cup butter ½ t. lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar 1/8 ts. nutmeg
¼ tsp vanilla
Cream butter and add sugar gradually. Flavor . . .

My kids loved it, even knowing that it was full of roots and tubers. Go figure.